Bera the One-Headed Troll by Eric Orchard

Date read: 27 August 2016
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Challenges: 2016gnc

Hardback, 126 pages
Published 2016 by First Second
Source: Deschutes Public Library [J Graphic Novel ORCHARD ERIC]

“Bera doesn’t ask for much in life. She’s a solitary, humble troll, tending her island pumpkin patch in cheerful isolation. She isn’t looking for any trouble.

But when trouble comes to find her, it comes in spades. A human baby has arrived in the realm of the trolls, and nobody knows where it came from, but Bera seems to be the only person who doesn’t want it dead. There’s nothing to it but to return the adorable little thing to its parents.

Like it or not, Bera’s gone and found herself a quest.” – Inside front jacket flap.

A story of heroes, both renowned and unknown, friendship, responsibility, and cross-species caring. Things do not end up exactly as the blurb above alludes but then that is often the case.

If you are looking for intelligent books for children then you ought look at First Second’s line. Actually, they have great books for all ages. I actually follow First Second in Goodreads and although they effectively recommend many of their own books by reviewing them I do not mind as I believe I have enjoyed every last one, from Feynman to Bera the One-Headed Troll.

Taking a quick look through their line made me make a note to look a lot closer and add some interesting looking things to my to read list.

Highly recommended.

This is the 44th book in my 

La Perdida by Jessica Abel

Date read: 20-24 August 2016
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Challenges: 2016gnc

Hardback, ix, 275 pages
Published 2006 by Pantheon Books
Source: Deschutes Public Library [Graphic Novel ABEL JESSICA]

The description from Goodreads:

“From the Harvey and Lulu award–winning creator of Artbabecomes this riveting story of a young woman’s misadventures in Mexico City. Carla, an American estranged from her Mexican father, heads to Mexico City to “find herself.” She crashes with a former fling, Harry, who has been drinking his way through the capital in the great tradition of his heroes, William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac. Harry is good—humored about Carla’s reappearance on his doorstep—until he realizes that Carla, who spends her days soaking in the city, exploring Frida Kahlo’s house, and learning Spanish, has no intention of leaving.

When Harry and Carla’s relationship of mutual tolerance reaches its inevitable end, she rejects his world of Anglo expats for her own set of friends: pretty-boy Oscar, who sells pot and dreams of being a DJ, and charismatic Memo, a left-wing, pseudo–intellectual ladies’ man. Determined to experience the real Mexico, Carla turns a blind eye to her new friends’ inconsistencies. But then she catches the eye of a drug don, el Gordo, and from that moment on her life gets a lot more complicated, and she is forced to confront the irreparable consequences of her willful innocence.

Jessica Abel’s evocative black–and–white drawings and creative mix of English and Spanish bring Mexico City’s past and present to life, unfurling Carla’s dark history against the legacies of Burroughs and Kahlo. A story about the youthful desire to live an authentic life and the consequences of trusting easy answers,La Perdida–at once grounded in the particulars of life in Mexico and resonantly universal–is a story about finding oneself by getting lost.”

This title won the 2002 Harvey Award for Best New Series per the inside back flap of the book cover. Verified at Wikipedia.

I thought it was alright, a bit too self-indulgent perhaps. No idea how I was supposed to think of Carla by the end, just another stupid American who lost her ideals, was changed in the process, and lost her self.

All of the other Americans in Mexico City kept together and were generally asses, while none of the many named Mexican characters had any real redeeming qualities either. Only the unnamed masses were held up as innocents, if you will.

Just not sure what I’m supposed to take away from it and I can’t find a lot of depth other than perhaps “people and life are messy,” and that isn’t very deep and has been told much better a thousand different ways before.

By the by, La Perdida translates to “the loss.”

This is the 42nd book in my 

A Game of Thrones: The Graphic Novel, volumes one and two by Daniel Abraham (adaptor), Tommy Patterson (art), Ivan Nunes (colors), Marshall Dillon (lettering); based on the novels by George R.R. Martin

Date read: 09 August 2016 and 09-10 August 2016
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Challenges: 2016gnc

Hardbacks, 1 volume ea. (unpaged)
Published 2012 by Bantam and 2013 by Bantam
Source: Deschutes Public Library [Graphic Novel GAME OF THRONES V.1 & V.2]
Volume One contains Issues 1-6 plus “The Making of A Game of Thrones: The Graphic Novel: Volume 1”
Volume Two contains Issues 7-12 plus “The Making of A Game of Thrones: The Graphic Novel: Volume 2”

Abstract v1

“The kingdom of the Stark family faces its ultimate challenge in the onset of a generation-long winter, the poisonous plots of the rival Lannisters, the emergence of the Neverborn demons, and the arrival of barbarian hordes.”

Abstract v2

“In this second volume, the action moves from the icy north, where the bastard Jon Snow seeks to carve out a place for himself among the bitter outcasts and hardened criminals sworn to service upon the Wall … to the decadent south and the capital city of King’s Landing, where Jon’s father, Lord Eddard Stark, serves as the Hand of King Robert Baratheon amid a nest of courtly vipers … to the barbarian lands across the Narrow Sea, where the young princess Daenerys Targaryen has found the unexpected in her forced marriage to the Dothraki warlord Khal Drogo: love — and with it, for the first time in her life, power. Meanwhile, the dwarf Tyrion Lannister, accused by Lady Catelyn Stark of the attempted murder of her son, must call upon all his cunning to survive imprisonment in the dungeons of the Eyrie, where Lady Stark’s sister rules.”

[Abstracts from the records in OCLC Worldcat]

These are my introduction to A Game of Thrones; I have neither read the books nor seen any of the TV show. I enjoyed them and “The Making of …” bits in each of these collected volumes but the number of characters is beginning to get out of hand. The 3^rd volume is waiting for me at the public library and the 4^th is on its way.

I may try and get the DVDs of the HBO show so I can see Peter Dinklage playing Tyrion Lannister. I would think he’d be an utter hoot in that role. I am a bit concerned about the amount of utterly visual violence though.

Quite enjoyed but perhaps too many characters for me. And going to get worse. Oh well.

By the way, the graphic novels are not recreations of the HBO series but a completely separate adaptation that pretty much happened parallel to the TV show. They talk, in the first volume, about keeping an eye on what HBO did to solve certain problems and sometimes it worked for them but just as often they did/needed another solution.

Recommended for mature audiences.

These are the 35th and 36th books in my 

Bitch Planet, Book One:: Extraordinary Machine by Kelly Sue DeConnick, Valentine De Landro, et al.

Date read: 10 July 2016
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Challenges: 2016gnc

Paperback, [156 pages]
Published 2015 by Image Comics [Originally published in single magazine form as Bitch Planet #1-5]
Source: Deschutes Public Library via Jefferson County [GRAPHIC Bitch V.1]

I enjoyed this quite a bit and would like to see where it goes but the next volume does not come out until 8 November. I will have no idea who the characters are anymore or what happened up till now in the story by then. Perhaps when a few more volumes come out (assuming they do) I will come back and revisit it.

Rated Mature as contains nudity, cursing, and violence. Its themes and subject headings are Women prisoners and Penal colonies. So think, Women in prison (exploitation) films and novels but within an exclusively patriarchal corporate political system.

As I said, I quite enjoyed it but personally I prefer there be more of a story published before I get into it.

There is already a fair bit of social commentary but these first 5 issues contained in this volume are still background for the story so not as much as would be possible in a developed world/context.

Recommended for fans of feminism, women in prison exploitation films, social commentary, and so on.

This is the 34th book in my